


Change of Plans

by RavenpuffLove



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blood, Crime, Cutting (not self harm), Prejudice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:20:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23109145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenpuffLove/pseuds/RavenpuffLove
Summary: Daphne has a few . . . non-traditional suggestions for Hermione when she submits a spell patent application with the potential to change the Wizarding World
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Daphne Greengrass
Comments: 30
Kudos: 57
Collections: Transfiguration: 2020 Round One





	Change of Plans

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [DBQ2020Round1](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/DBQ2020Round1) collection. 



> Disclaimer: The characters do not belong to me but are the property of J.K.R. and Warner Bros. No copyright infringement is intended. 
> 
> The theme for this round of the competition was Transfiguration and my chosen pairing was Hermione Granger/Daphne Greengrass.
> 
> Thanks a million to granger_danger not just for Betaing this piece but for becoming a friend in the process 🖤

“Thank you for coming in, Miss Granger,” Daphne said, ushering the other witch into her neat but cramped office in the Department of Patents at the Ministry. “Can I offer you anything? I know it's close to lunch, but this is the only way I could fit you in for more than fifteen minutes and I really want to have the opportunity to talk with you at length about your application.”

“Er, alright then. Don't make work for yourself because of me, but I won't make you eat alone.”

“It's no trouble for me. My mother insists on sending something with a house-elf every day. Rinsy should be here any moment and she always brings more than I could possibly eat.” Daphne did not miss the way that the other witch's lips pursed at the mention of the elf.

She'd almost forgotten that Hermione hated the plight of house-elves, despite the fact that she'd been interviewed about it at least twice in the Daily Prophet since the end of the war. No matter, it would work in her favor.

Blackmail could work to more than one purpose.

As if on cue, Rinsy appeared with a crack, a tea tray with a delicate but ample display of finger sandwiches and colorful biscuits floating in the air beside her.

“I broughts you your luncheon, Missy Daph,” she said sweetly, levitating the tray gently onto the desk before seeming to notice Hermione. “Oh, you has a guest! Why you no tells Rinsy, Missy Daph? Is you wanting to make Rinsy look bad by not telling how many dishes she needs?”

“I wasn't sure she'd want anything, Rinsy. I promise you that Miss Granger won't think badly of you.”

“Please don't worry about me, Rinsy,” Hermione said apologetically, reaching for a napkin. “I can eat just fine off of this.”

“You will not, Miss!” Rinsy retorted, staring at Hermione, clearly scandalized. She snapped and a cup, saucer, spoon, and lunch plate to match Daphne's appeared in a neat stack on her outstretched hand “We is civilized. You no going to eat off paper while Missy Daph has china.”

“Of course,” Hermione replied. “Thank you for your accommodation, Rinsy.”

They took a few moments to load their plates high and make their tea, Hermione's with plenty of sugar and Daphne's gone blond with cream.

“I hope you won't think me rude if I get straight to business?” Daphne asked after a few sips.

“Not at all,” Hermione replied. “I'd prefer it to trying to make polite conversation when I'm worrying about the status of my application.”

“Oh you shouldn't be worried at all, Herm — may I call you Hermione?”

“Of course.”

“Good. As I was saying you don't need to worry about your application. The spellwork is sound — you dotted every _i_ and crossed every _t._ I didn't call you here today to hassle you about some inconsequential mishap with the paperwork or to pick over your wand movement descriptions.” Daphne was being entirely truthful. There wasn't a typo or arithmantic miscalculation in the project and she knew it had already been tested. “I'm very interested in the spell you've crafted, Hermione. It's astonishingly complicated work, but I'm worried that you've misjudged its practical potential.”

“I appreciate the compliment, Daphne. Honestly,” Hermione said, setting her plate to the side and daintily brushing crumbs off her chin. “But I really don't see how I could have misjudged its practical application. The spellwork is complex, but the purpose is pretty straightforward. I'm not even the first person to theorize it — I got the idea to focus on a blood adoption spell from a treatise written in 1895.”

Daphne knew exactly the treatise the other witch spoke of. Her father had always been vaguely obsessed with it, as were many pureblood aristocrats. But Hermione's spellwork was far and beyond what had been described in that paper. It wasn't something that created a simulacrum of familial relation to fool wards, a contractual agreement that could be abandoned by either party at any time. It was a true transformation of the blood, isolating the particular traces family magic left in the tiniest components of the blood and twisting the host’s blood to express it. Once done it couldn't be undone, only overwritten. Transfiguration on a molecular level, a blending of muggle science and magical alchemy.

It changed everything.

“Oh, this piece of transfiguration could and should make it easier for pureblood families to adopt muggleborns and give them elevated political status so that they can actually make legislative progress. I assume you plan to make use of it this way yourself.”

“I do.”

“Good. The Wizengamot is full of old witches and wizards and needs to be shaken up,” Daphne assured her, hoping her smile came off as earnest and not sinister. “It's important work, but have you considered how few pureblood families would actually be sympathetic to your reforms?”

“I think I've managed to convince a few, and I already had ins to the Weasleys, the Lovegoods, the Bones, the Dumbledores, the Potters, the Blacks, and the Shacklebolts.” Hermione replied defensively, her hair almost bristling around her like an annoyed cat.

“That's actually better than I assumed, but even if you had your seven, plus a few more — let’s say an even ten altogether —” Daphne said, knowing she wasn't explaining anything the witch didn’t already know, “you would still have more than twenty families standing against your crusade through the Ministry.”

“It's not good odds, but it's what I've got,” Hermione said, gaze defiant.

“See, that's what you're missing. You could have so much more,” Daphne promised, embarrassed by the raw desire in her voice. Greed was gauche, but she couldn't suppress it now that her chance was approaching.

“I don't see how.”

“That treatise you read — it was written by Agrippa Nott, wasn't it?” Daphne asked.

“Yes.” Hermione replied stiffly, as if she were uncomfortable admitting the kind of reading she’d been doing. 

“Just think,” Daphne began, setting the stage for the other witch, “Agrippa wanted a way to circumvent the limits of ancient blood wards and the blood lineage of Gringott's inheritance policies because she believed that her family was suffering from the effects of inbreeding and that it was the reason for the increasing prevalence of Squibs. She knew that most people wouldn't cordon off parts of their homes from their spouses or want to create separate banking for them that doesn't have the benefits of the lower-level vaults. So they stick to the Sacred Twenty-Eight and the adjacent few older families like the Potters, all of whom are so massively intermarried that blood is never a barrier to anything. Agrippa thought that if they could create a mask to fool ancient barriers, then the half-blood bastards could be acceptably adopted or married in, freshen up the blood so —”

“If she'd had any understanding of genetic inheritance she might have understood that marrying in people who are still massively related to you wouldn't solve the Squib problem!” Hermione interrupted, rolling her eyes in annoyance.

“Ah, but the only real solution would never have been acceptable to her because it would have weakened the stranglehold that the Sacred Twenty-Eight have on power,” Daphne replied, self-consciously twiddling with the ring on her middle finger, the Greengrass family crest prominently displayed. “Because marrying in muggleborns or muggles themselves, or even those from families who didn't ascribe to blood purity, would have meant marrying in people who didn't place retaining pureblood supremacy as their highest priority.”

“It's never really about the blood,” Hermione said, a lifetime of bitterness sharpening her voice. “Some might think it's that people really believe the bullshit bigots spew, but it's always the same when you really look at it. They only believe it so far as it benefits them. It's about power.”

“Except you just changed everything, Hermione,” Daphne insisted, shifting forward to the edge of her seat and levitating the luncheon tray to a nearby file cabinet. “You can make the blood and the power one and the same. You just have to be willing to break some rules.”

Hermione stared through Daphne as she thought. Daphne could almost hear the cogs in that big brain of hers turning as she examined what they'd talked about for clues and compared them to her spellcraft, looking for the connection. Hermione's mouth moved as she thought, silently expressing the calculations and realizations she formed in her mind, teeth occasionally catching her bottom lip as her brows furrowed on a snag in her rumination. It was like watching a masterpiece being painted by a master — pure focus, talent, and skill coalescing into the answer.

“I can't turn it into power . . . but I can turn it into money, and that's as good as.”

“Yes you can,” Daphne replied, her smile growing, taking on a feral edge as she imagined her father's cavernous vaults echoing and empty. “Gringotts can't stop a blood relative from accessing the family vaults unless there are specific prohibitions against them.”

Like the prohibitions her father had put on her when she had refused Draco Malfoy's marriage proposal. Even though the young man had been perfectly willing to accept her sister as a substitute, and Astoria had been more than happy to have snagged a rich and handsome marriage prospect.

“I already robbed the place once,” Hermione whispered, suddenly squirming in her chair. She cast her eyes toward the sealed and silenced door. “I'll get thrown in Azkaban if they catch me, Daphne.”

Daphne relished the sound of her name in the other witch's mouth, the strident syllables as soft and secret as a promise.

“You won't be robbing them.”

“I'm going to have to. At least the first time,” the other witch insisted, her eyes taking on the faraway look of memory. “Otherwise no one will believe me, and blackmail doesn't work if you can't prove you have power. ”

“It's only robbery if you haven't been granted access to the vault.” Daphne assured her, the plan that had been forming in her mind since she first saw the patent application come across her desk finally spilling forth into the world. “No one knows this spell exists.I am the first step at the patent office, and there's no paper trail until I pass it on. Gringotts isn't going to admit you tricked them twice — they will fall back on blood rights and refuse to reveal what happened to the money. After that it's as easy as giving them a choice, family by family: their money or their continued support of blood supremacy. A few Unbreakable Vows and you've changed the face of the wizarding world.”

Daphne rolled up the delicate mint green sleeve of her robes, revealing the pale flesh of her left wrist and making a small incision in the center of her upturned palm with a whispered spell and flick of her wand.

“Besides, they certainly can't claim it's a crime if I grant you the access of my own free will and tell you to take it,” she said, carefully leaning forward across the desk and offering Hermione her bleeding hand. “We can say it was a test of the spell’s viability if something goes terribly wrong, but I don't think it will.”

“Why would you do this for me?” Hermione stared at the blood slowly welling in Daphne's palm, her brows pulled low with suspicion.

Daphne looked around at her cramped office. Multiple 'Spell Patents Reviewer of the Month' plaques lined the north wall. Every square inch of floor space was occupied by furniture. A picture of her family sat on the edge of her desk, tilted so that she could see it every day. Her father and sister looked unbelievably happy in it, a still shot during a tea party at Malfoy manor from long before the war. Daphne felt a strange mix of fondness and bitterness as she watched the figures laugh and lift their cups in a mock clink to the camera, as her mother's eyes rose up to meet the camera, glazed with boredom.

“No one will ever promote me higher than this because they believe that I will consent to marriage rather than end up disinherited. No woman will have me, for the same reason. Do I seem like someone who enjoys being chattel, Hermione?” Daphne asked, raising her eyes from the photograph to meet Hermione's suspicious gaze. “I want my life to be my own enough to risk just about anything for it. If it works then I expect you to put at least half of my family fortune into a vault for me. If we get found out and I get disinherited . . . I'll still be free.”

“How do I know I can trust you?” Hermione's voice wavered as she continued to question, as if she couldn't sustain her skepticism in the presence of a kindred spirit.

“Besides the fact that I just offered you my blood for your spell?” Daphne rolled her eyes. “I'd take an Unbreakable Vow, but you'd have to bring in someone else.”

“I'll just take a little extra blood. For collateral.” The threat hung in the air between them as Hermione siphoned off some of the blood pooling in Daphne's palm into a hastily conjured vial. There was a lot you could do with someone's blood besides Hermione's new transfiguration and very little of it was pleasant.

“Fair enough.” Daphne said, her stomach souring a bit at the smell of blood. “Get it over with. I want you to empty out my family vaults this afternoon.”

Hermione mimicked Daphne's earlier motions, pulling up her sleeve and creating a tiny cut in her palm, before reaching across the desk and pressing their hands together. Their blood mingled, dripping onto the dark wood between them.

“It's not pleasant, but I promise not to scream. Don't freak out.”

Hermione muttered the incantation under her breath, waving her wand with her free hand in the intricate inward spiral that she'd described in the patent application, and Daphne felt a tingle that spread through every inch of her body. The crackling magic pulled out towards the hand clasped in Hermione's, making her suddenly aware of the map of blood vessels running under her skin. As the feeling coalesced in the cut on Daphne’s palm, Hermione let out a pained hiss.

Hermione's face pulled into a grimace and her hand spasmed against Daphne's, squeezing the little bones of her hand uncomfortably. Her whole body shook as the magic seemed to flow in from the small wound in her hand, tiny noises escaping her tightly clasped lips as it inched its way toward her center. Evidently the feeling of individual cells transmuting to reflect new genetic signatures was more than unpleasant — it was excruciating. Daphne knew exactly when the process had reached Hermione's blood-rich heart because a full body tremble wracked her and she fell forward over the desk, pressing her upper body into the cool wood. An animalistic noise broke through the desperate effort to keep quiet, a choked grunt of surprise, and then it was over.

Suddenly their hands parted, wounds healed, still streaked with drying blood. Hermione was shaking, sprawled limply across the ministry standard desk, but she looked up to meet Daphne's gaze once again. A vicious, victorious grin spread across her face.

“It's done,” she said as she pushed herself back up in her chair properly, sweat shining on her face. “I'm as good as a Greengrass.”

“Good. Drink some more tea and then it's off to Gringotts for you,” Daphne replied, casting scourgify on the remaining blood and levitating the tea service back to the desk.

“And then?”

“Let them simmer for a few days trying to figure it out,” Daphne mused, imagining the look on her father's face when he saw the empty vaults. “Then I have the perfect target.”

* * *

Draco's consciousness returned as quickly as it had left him, a moment of dizzying confusion and he was aware once again . . . though he was no longer in the Greengrass drawing room waiting for his betrothed to grace him with her presence.

He was bound to a chair in a room that was pitch black beyond the hazy circle of light that surrounded him. The only other visible thing was Hermione Granger, seated across from him in a spindly looking chair, her hand clasped in his, blood dripping onto the floor between them.

“Oh good, you're awake,” a familiar voice said from somewhere behind her, a graceful hand appearing from the darkness to wipe Granger's brow with a mint green handkerchief. “We've got a proposition for you, Draco.”

  
  
  



End file.
